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Same As It Ever Washttp://realtimerick.com/2014/03/23/same-as-it-ever-was/
http://realtimerick.com/2014/03/23/same-as-it-ever-was/#commentsMon, 24 Mar 2014 01:50:43 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=681]]>A few thoughts on the promise and peril of the next generation ERP/PLM/MES alphabet soup.

There is cause for optimism, for sure, when we look at the cloud and mobile technologies being developed and deployed. Working as the head of client services for a SaaS eProcurement vendor with 98% cloud-based implementations, I could sit at my desk (or in my home office), and diagnose (and fix) client issues, sometimes before the client was aware of them. The only clients that actually had to do any of their own maintenance were the handful of clients that hosted the solution behind their firewall.

Not to minimize the impact of these technologies in eProcurement, but complex manufacturing is a totally different animal. In much of the reading I’ve been doing lately on ERP/PLM/MES, I am seeing the same issues discussed that were the hot topics in the 1990’s

Intelligent data exchange from MRO/Manufacturing back to the engineering department

Have we really advanced all that far? I believe there are three issues that stand in the way of actually solving these problems, and none of these issues are new:

1 - Legacy systems never die. Major manufacturers still have ties to systems developed in the ‘dark ages’, and the ERP/PLM/MES vendors wind up having to either integrate, replicate or mimic these systems in order to keep products moving out the door. At one aerospace & defense firm I worked with, the IT staff had completely turned over since the ‘legacy’ BOM system had been developed, so any time there were changes to be made that impacted this system, it was trial and error. Run a series of test transactions and see what comes out the other end. The complexity of the code combined with the lack of knowledge of the rules governing that application’s behavior made it virtually impossible to replace AND virtually impossible to maintain.

I know of companies that were buying Digital VAX parts on eBay to keep some of their legacy environments running!

2 – Many firms implement new systems by looking in the rear-view mirror. In a previous company, we had the opportunity to replace a legacy process planning system with our newest offering. When the project was done, we were asked to expand the application into other areas of the business. One of our new ‘prospects’ asked their internal project manager if there was anything they would have done differently when they put in our system. She said:

“Our biggest mistake was looking at this application as a replacement for the legacy application. By doing that we restricted our scope to what the old product did, and did not take advantage of some of the features of the new product.”

Other well-known examples of ‘backward facing':

Systems with field size limitations that can be traced back to the 80 column restriction in punch cards.

The ‘floppy’ icon that is still used as the ‘save’ icon, years after the death of floppy drives.

The use of ‘Files’ and ‘Folders’ in computing environments.

There is some comfort from adopting familiar symbols and approaches, but this makes the paradigm shift even more difficult.

3 – We’re only human. (OK, quoting TWO songs from the 80’s). Regardless of technology, be it mainframe, client-server, PC, tablet, smartphone, cloud, the person actually “cuttin’ chips” has to be engaged in the process. We’ve all heard stories of carefully designed and documented engineering changes, approved, planned, released to the shop, and summarily ignored by the machinist who has been making this part the same way for years. There is an aerospace supplier in central Connecticut that had a titanium ring as a planter in the landscape in front of his shop. The engineer had specified 100 holes equally spaced around the ring, where the mating part had 101 holes equally spaced.

We do make mistakes, and while technology can alleviate some of these issues, it can also amplify them.

I’m not here to throw cold water on IoT, SaaS, mobile, social, etc. This is truly an exciting time for manufacturing technology. We just need to remember people and process as we charge forward.

There are some interesting parallels with the introduction of mobile, social, and cloud technologies in manufacturing (referred to by Gartner Group as the Nexus of Forces) to what the music industry faced in the 1990s with the creation of digital music formats (MP3) and digital players (iPods, etc.).

The Nexus of Forces represents the confluence of mobile, social, information and cloud technologies. Together, these technologies are transforming the way people and businesses use information and collaborate.

Looking back to the two-pronged ‘attack’ on the record industry (MP3 format and internet file sharing), copyright infringement and music piracy were the issues that played out in court, as high profile musicians (Metallica and Dr Dre) as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), made certain that sites such as Napster would no longer be able to share music for free. The problem was, the cat was already out of the bag. Portable digital music was here to stay. While the RIAA and record labels continued to try to stop the inevitable, the portable digital music train left the station. in April of 2003, Apple opened the iTunes store. in the short 10 years since then, the sale of CDs has plummeted:

When music sales reached their peak in 2000, Americans bought 943 million CD albums, and digital sales weren’t even a blip on the radar. By 2007, however, those inexpensive digital singles overtook CDs — by a wide margin — generating 819 million sales to just 500 million for the CD.

So, what does this mean to the world of Manufacturing Execution Systems? Legacy MES and ERP systems were designed for a totally different paradigm. Data security and control were paramount, user experience was not even a term that was recognized as important in the industry.

In the 1990’s, we warned that the new workforce would expect the same sort of computing experience on the shop floor than they had at home. At that point, we were just talking about browsers. In one implementation that I was a part of, the shop floor users moved very quickly from “I’m not going to use a computer” to “why doesn’t this look like Yahoo?”.

That was then. What is happening now is a sea change. Companies that would not consider wifi due to security concerns are now looking seriously at moving data offsite to ‘the cloud’. The Facebook generation is demanding the same sort of mobile and social tools that are part of their everyday lives to be made available in the workplace. And, if these tools are not available in the workplace, users will use those technologies outside of the framework of their company’s business systems.

This represents a real challenge both for manufacturing industries, and the software vendors that support them. The answer is not simply distributing tablets to the shop floor. There will need to be a new generation of business process management, data security and mobility software to support this next generation of shop floor systems. This Nexus of Forces is a challenge and an opportunity for software vendors and manufacturers alike.

So, when it comes to the Nexus of Forces, are you going to be iTunes? or are you going to be the RIAA?

-RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2014/02/26/one-fine-mes/feed/0rfranzosaLollipop Momenthttp://realtimerick.com/2014/01/25/lollipop-moment/
http://realtimerick.com/2014/01/25/lollipop-moment/#commentsSat, 25 Jan 2014 02:50:59 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=669]]>I was listening to a podcast the other day, TED Radio Hour. The topic was Disruptive Leadership, but the one talk that stood out for me was a discussion by Drew Dudley entitled “Have You Changed Someone’s Life Without Realizing It?”

In this talk, Mr. Dudley relates a story of how HE changed someone’s life. It is a GREAT story. A lollipop figures into the story ( you can google ‘lollipop moment’ and get to the same talk).

This got me thinking about my own “lollipop moments”. In the 6th grade, I was having difficulty seeing the blackboard at school. My parents took me to the eye doctor and had me fitted with glasses. Now, at Bentley School in Manchester, CT, there were only two male teachers. One of these teachers was my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Ewald. When I went to school my first day with glasses, he stopped me in the playground, looked down at me and said, “Richard, you look handsome in those glasses”.

Friends, I’ve seen pictures of myself in 6th grade, and let me tell you, I looked DORKY in those glasses…. But to this day, I can see him. towering over me, almost as tall as the basketball pole behind him. I’ve rarely considered contact lenses, and never thought seriously about laser eye surgery. Five decades out of 6th grade, I still wear those glasses.

Even in my adult life, I can remember an executive at a company I worked for back in the 80’s telling me “You’d make a great salesperson!” I followed his advice, though I had always been an engineer, and never felt that sales was for me.

On the giving end of ‘lollipop moments, my daughter, on more than one occasion, has said, “You know, Dad. I always remember you telling me ______” and the ‘fill in the blank’ is something wise and thoughtful that I have no recollection of ever saying to her.

Keep in mind this cuts both ways. A careless derogatory comment has as long a life as a quick compliment. So, be nice. You never know when what you say will be that ‘lollipop moment’ for someone else.

– RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2014/01/25/lollipop-moment/feed/1rfranzosaCustomer Service – Unintended Consequences Part Deuxhttp://realtimerick.com/2013/07/25/customer-service-unintended-consequences-part-deux/
http://realtimerick.com/2013/07/25/customer-service-unintended-consequences-part-deux/#commentsThu, 25 Jul 2013 12:01:09 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=662]]>My wife loves to shop…. However, she does not like ‘returns’. That’s my job. It works quite well, actually. When the clerk at the service counter asks what the reason was for the return, I just shrug my shoulders and say “I’m just doing what I’m told”…

In all three cases, these were recent purchases and I had the receipt….

Here were my experiences:

White House/Black Market :

WH/BM: “Do you have the credit card that was used for this purchase”

RTR: “I’m sorry, no. It was my wife’s card”

WH/BM: “Well, we can’t do a refund without that exact card.”

RTR: “What are my choices?”

WH/BM: “We can give you store credit, or you can come back with the card”

Not knowing whether or not my wife wanted store credit, I left.

Payless Shoes:

PS: “Do you have the credit card that was used for this purchase”

RTR: “I’m sorry, no. It was my wife’s card”

PS: “Well, do you have another card that you and your wife both use?”

RTR: “Yes” (handed her the card)

Not ‘optimal’, but the clerk was thinking on her feet and I was able to complete the return.

Target:

T: “Thank you, sir. The refund was processed to your wife’s card”

Done and done. Took maybe 5 seconds.

Question for you, loyal readers. Which store will I continue to frequent, and to which store will I NEVER RETURN!

Final note. Adjacent to the Service Counter at Target, there are trash cans, and a recycling bin for the shopping bag that I used to bring in the return.

It’s the little things that make or break customer service…

-RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2013/07/25/customer-service-unintended-consequences-part-deux/feed/0rfranzosaWe Are All Permanent Beta… or we SHOULD behttp://realtimerick.com/2012/10/05/we-are-all-permanent-beta-or-we-should-be/
http://realtimerick.com/2012/10/05/we-are-all-permanent-beta-or-we-should-be/#commentsFri, 05 Oct 2012 18:03:32 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=591]]>Back in May, we hired a new Client Support Specialist. He is a very bright individual, but new to our technology and our line of business. Now, four months later, he and I were having a discussion about a few customer issues, and I was struck by how, well, comfortable, he looked.

I commented on this, and he told me that while he is more comfortable, he considers himself “Permanent Beta”. I had never heard that term before (a phrase I believe coined by Reid Hoffman earlier this year). I love the term, much more high tech than ‘work in progress’

I did a bit of googling and found numerous references to ‘Permanent Beta’. Ironically, this term has both positive and negative connotations. The positives being continuous improvement, self improvement, etc. The negatives were in articles about products that are never finished (example: Google Apps End Their State of Permanent Beta).

Frankly, I like the idea! Is ‘never finished’ a bad thing?

When I joined the iPhone set, I thought it was really cool that Apps are updated continuously, with no requirement for me to go somewhere to get the update.

I am happy to see technology that brings me along. I don’t have time to look for version 5.1.3.2.55 or whatever.

So, who would complain about ‘Permanent Beta’?

– People and organizations that are rigid.

– People and organizations using products or technology that require ‘big-bang’ implementations.

– People and organizations that want things ‘the way they used to be’

Not me, I’m loving this idea.

I just joined the local rec center, I’m there every morning, huffing and puffing on the treadmill, lifting embarrassingly small amounts of weight on the machines. No matter. I feel better, I have more energy. I’m permanent beta.

Y’all better get on this band wagon. The Permanent Beta train is leaving the station and it NEVER STOPS.

The alternative? You get left behind.

– RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2012/10/05/we-are-all-permanent-beta-or-we-should-be/feed/1rfranzosaAttitude – Livin’ The Dream with a nod to Jack Nicholsonhttp://realtimerick.com/2012/08/23/attitude-livin-the-dream-with-a-nod-to-jack-nicholson/
http://realtimerick.com/2012/08/23/attitude-livin-the-dream-with-a-nod-to-jack-nicholson/#commentsThu, 23 Aug 2012 15:19:13 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=581]]>Had a visit from Tom the Plumber yesterday. I’ve known Tom for years, we were both involved with youth football years ago. He asked me, “How’s it going?” … I had been online with work when he arrived, and I was a bit preoccupied, so I hesitated in my response. After a pause he said “Living the dream, huh?”

Later in the day, I had a long convo with a friend, talking about college loans that he may never be able to completely pay off. I had a less than fulfilling webmeeting with a customer. I had a long father/son chat with my youngest when he got home around 11:00, I finished the day online with our support organization in Bangalore, and a customer in Australia at about 12:30 AM.

There was a time when I would think of the seminal moment in Jack Nicholson’s movie, “As Good As It Gets” where his character, the OCD Melvin Udall, says to a group of depressed patients in the waiting room of his psychiatrist “What if this is as good as it gets?” I used to love that line, especially when I was feeling sorry for myself ….

… but you know what? I AM LIVING THE DREAM.

As I said to my son last night, It IS all about attitude. It is about how you deal with what you can’t control.

Is my job challenging, even overwhelming at times? Hell, yeah!

Are the weeds threatening to take over my lawn? most definitely!

Are the everyday challenges of life and relationships sometimes daunting? sure thing.

Do I get everything right the first time? puh-leeeze!

Does the upstairs toilet still leak? Uh, no (thanks, Tom)

This IS living the dream, gainfully employed, challenged, winning some, losing some, with a loving family, in a great country.

So, by way of apology, this blog is commenting on a two-week oldblog from Harvard Business Review, with the grabber title “If the Customer is Always Right, You’re in Trouble”. Being in the Client Support Biz, I had to check it out, because, well, my customers ARE always right, aren’t they?

Turns out, the blog is not about customer service at all, it is about “the death of Solution Selling”. Well, having spent the better part of 20 years selling (if you can call that better) I not only have had Solution Selling training, but also smatterings of Gitomer, Sandler, and, of course, both learning and teaching Dale Carnegie Sales Advantage. NOW you’ve got my attention, HBR!

So what is this “death of Solution Selling” all about? This blog describes, in gory detail, how the tenets of Solution Selling just don’t apply anymore:

“Across the last five years, however, we’ve observed both in our data and our conversations with sales leaders around the world a dramatic drop in the efficacy of this [solution selling] approach. In a survey of several thousand B2B customers conducted by our company, CEB, we found that B2B customers were nearly 60% of the way through a typical purchase before they reached out to a sales rep for input. More often than not, the hard reality is that customers have begun the buying long before suppliers have begun the selling. So by the time a supplier is called in, there’s no need to discover needs at all. By and large, customers (believe they) have figured everything out…

… For most companies, the biggest competitor today isn’t the competition, it’s customers’ ability to learn on their own.”

So, what is the answer?

According to HBR, there are two questions that most suppliers overlook:

“First, where do your customers learn? Is it on the Internet? In online communities? From third parties (and if so, where do those third parties themselves learn)?

Second, do you teach customers something new and important about their business that they cannot learn on their own? Because if your biggest competitor is the customer’s ability to learn, then that’s what you’ll need to do to win.”

So there you have it. It’s not good enough to ask the right questions and get to the ‘C’ suite. If you are not a Subject Matter Expert that can, in fact, become a Trusted Advisor and “teach your customer something new and important”, you may as well just sharpen your pencil, because in the sea of look-alikes, it always comes down to price.

– RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2012/08/15/the-customer-is-what/feed/1rfranzosaCommenting on “The Art of Letting Go”, Kenny Rogers and Don Draperhttp://realtimerick.com/2012/06/07/commenting-on-the-art-of-letting-go-kenny-rogers-and-don-draper/
http://realtimerick.com/2012/06/07/commenting-on-the-art-of-letting-go-kenny-rogers-and-don-draper/#commentsThu, 07 Jun 2012 21:40:08 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=536]]>My new favorite blogger, Tony Schwartz, has done it again. His blog “The Art of Letting Go” is a great piece for that sale, that venture, that relationship that you just can’t give up on. It reminds me of that classic greeting card a friend once sent me:

They said it couldn’t be done…. How did they know?

Tony talks about how tough it is to go against the grain, how we are predisposed to fight the good fight, persevere against all odds. The fact that this perseverance does exact an emotional toll.

I recall many instances in my sales career where the handwriting was Sharpied indelibly on the wall. Without question the deal was dead, but we spent additional time, energy and effort to change the mind of someone who’s mind was already made up. This is a chronic entrperneurial disease. It is hard to walk away when you are small, trying to rapidly make the Big Time.

Tony ends the piece with a simple set of four questions:

1. Do I have a feeling in my gut that this dog just won’t hunt?
2. How important will this seem to me in six months?
3. How important will this seem to me in two years?
4. Is there a more enjoyable and productive way I could be investing my time and energy right now?

If the answer to 1 and 4 are “yes,” or the answers to 2 and 3 are “not much,” it’s time to let go.

Which brings to mind the timeless wisdom of Kenny Rogers….

“You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run”

OK, that was way too obvious.

I have a better quote… Here’s where the connection was made and the fuse blew, and I started writing…

The phrase that came like a bolt out of the blue into my consciousness came from Sunday’s episode of “Mad Men”, when Don Draper (Jon Hamm) asked Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) to resign after he was caught embezzling. I so wanted to get this right, I actually paid and downloaded the episode from iTunes to transcribe it accurately. Lane sobbed “What do I tell my wife? What do I tell my son?”…

Don Draper’s words are all the more riveting, considering how the episode played out:

“Tell them that it didn’t work out, because it didn’t

Tell them the next thing will be better, because it always is …

I’ve started over a lot, Lane. This is the worst part.”

– RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2012/06/07/commenting-on-the-art-of-letting-go-kenny-rogers-and-don-draper/feed/0rfranzosaThe Magnificent Sevenhttp://realtimerick.com/2012/06/01/the-magnificent-seven/
http://realtimerick.com/2012/06/01/the-magnificent-seven/#commentsFri, 01 Jun 2012 22:22:02 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=516]]>Another great blog from HBR. The blog, “Seven “Non-Negotiables” to Prevent a Bad Hire”, is required reading! What are the seven?

Respect, Belief, Loyalty, Commitment, Trust, Courage and Gratitude

I have been in industry since the stone age, and have worked for dozens of managers and with hundreds of co-workers. Many of these people were technologically brilliant, hard working, intense individuals. However, the ones I remember, the ones I would go to battle with, can be singled out based on the magnificent seven above.

This is especially true in the last few decades, where I have spent my time in small (<50) person organizations. To elaborate:

Respect – The fastest way to lose a ‘subordinate’ is to treat them like a subordinate. I don’t know why this happens, I suspect insecurity in the management ranks….

Belief – Nothing will deflate a team faster than a non-believer. Naysayers drag everyone down. I have had extremely talented people in an organization that were POISON. There has never been a situation where one of them has left and things got worse. They have always improved!

Loyalty – Loyalty to the organization AND loyalty to the individual. I have worked in companies where organization trumps individual. This is the ultimate demotivator. Management sometimes forgets that the organization IS a collection of individuals.

Commitment – Commitment isn’t “I’ll try”, or “I’ll give it my best shot”. Commitment is “I’ll get it done”. One of my coworkers here is fond of saying. “It’s a problem, let’s fix it”

Trust – I had a job once where, when my wife met one of the executives, she said “He wouldn’t look me in the eye, I don’t trust him”. She was right. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch on for quite some time. If a team member is not trusted, respect belief, loyalty, commitment won’t be possible.

Courage – I remember a poster that said something like “If you can keep your head at times like these, perhaps you don’t understand the situation”. From the outside, this is not always recognized as courage, but that’s what it is. I’ve had coworkers in the past say, “The boss just doesn’t get it”. The truth of the matter typically is, the boss DOES get it, but the boss has to have the courage to push it aside.

Gratitude – I’m not stupid. I know the difference between gratitude and pandering. We ALL do.

Great blog HBR!

– RTR

]]>http://realtimerick.com/2012/06/01/the-magnificent-seven/feed/0rfranzosaWhere PLM and eProcurement Meet…http://realtimerick.com/2012/05/29/where-plm-and-eprocurement-meet/
http://realtimerick.com/2012/05/29/where-plm-and-eprocurement-meet/#commentsTue, 29 May 2012 00:16:06 +0000http://realtimerick.com/?p=434]]>My previous world (PLM) and new world (eProcurement) collided in a blog by my friend Oleg Shilovitsky; “New Definition of PLM from UK Datamation Info Assets”.

There has been a significant amount of ‘virtual ink’ spent discussing “exactly what is PLM?” It’s provided me with a lot of blogging material over the months….

This new ‘definition’ in Oleg’s blog I found to be intriguing:

PLM is different from say CAD, ERP, CRM, etc. and therefore investment decisions in it should be based on different criteria. PLM’s key role, as defined in the Datamation PLM Model report, is the effective management of information assets through-life. In other words, it is a “live entity”

There you have it. PLM is typically sold based on what it does for you now (vaulting… security… design process management). Not all that different from an eProcurement system (catalog management, purchasing, contracting). The key value through life is not that it can handle these day to day tasks. The key value is based on the fact that it builds an endless repository of all of those transactions.

In the PLM world, this data could be used to create design best practices, or it could be used for intelligent trouble shooting of design flaws.

In the eProcurement world, this data powers Purchase Decision Optimization (PDO). PDO means that each and every purchase can be optimized, based on previous buyer experience, supplier performance, trends, etc.; the kind of social marketplace that has become 2nd nature in the consumer world, but is still rare in business to business transactions.

So, whether it’s design data in a PLM system, or purchasing data in an eProc system, it’s not how you get the data, it’s what you do with it once you have it that counts. Learn more about PDO here.